ERMes Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Software

Many thanks to Katy K for teaching our class about ERMes Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Software at Murphy Library of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. The hands-on example really made ERM software much clearer. I have to say, the readings for this week were less than inspired. What a slog. It was really hard to take anything from them. I think you kind of had to know what ERM software looked like already to get much from the readings. But Katy came to the rescue with her demonstration.

I think the demonstration proved that ERMes is simple enough to use. I can't make any claims about other software, but if they are like ERMes, it seems like you could get a handle on the software pretty easily (especially if you are familiar with relational database design). I think the other thing that the demonstration proved is that entering all of your local data into the software could take a really, really long time. Now it does not seem surprising that some libraries might want ERM software, of even to have already bought it, but have no way of implementing it. There could be some real staffing hurdles when it comes to ERM software implementation. It will be interesting to see how licenses get incorporated into ERM software (perhaps via SERU).